Saturday, January 06, 2007

Fixed, Deployed, Tested


In my old job, it would have been "fixed, tested, and deployed," but in the world of oceans and yachts, when you have to put the boat in the water to test, it's a little different.

Cruising = Boat Repair in Exotic Locations
We were hauled out on Dec. 26 by the big travel lift at the Palmar yard in La Paz and all went well with that, but then we found that the rudder bearing wouldn't budge. Dec. 27, Robert drove us in his Prius to a ferreteria where we bought a giant $100 monkey wrench and Steve removed the bearing, then found he couldn't easily remove the seal because its surface was flush and there was nothing to grab to remove it. So, the yard guys removed the rudder shaft by chipping off fiberglass and then sanding to the brass plate, then found that one of the bolts wouldn't budge and had to drill it out. Once the rudder shaft was out, we could see that it was pitted where the seal had been. But Steve was able to remove the seals and replace them. All this with the limited help of technical drawings and instructions via email (delayed due to the time difference) from Hallberg-Rassy in Sweden. Their instruction to "draw out the simmer seals" didn’t mention how to do it. Beltane was back in el agua Dec. 29.